BK's latest article on "self-deception"

[Ben Iscatus]

He is saying everything which is logically reasoned, like the arguments in the essay, is also hallucination of the self-deceiving mind. If this is true, then you may ask, why does he still write the essay? That's a good question and what I pointed to in the first post. These sorts of abstract positions on logic are immediately self-defeating in that way, from Kant onwards, but that doesn't stop the intellect from asserting them.

Ash, your reasoning doesn't take you far enough.

Evolutionary constraints and cultural consensus means that logic, based on bounded causality, reaches many bounded minds. This makes it temporarily useful. But logic is not eternal truth. Alan Watts' cat's tail viewed through slits in the fence is caused by the cat's head.

Logic that defeats itself points to what is unbounded! You must have come across Zen koans.

[TriloByte]

Several times, in books or interviews, BK mentions the ideas of Viktor Frankl as one example of wise thinking and viable solution for the crisis of meaning. The thing is that in Frankl’s writings always is emphasized the importance of the individual, his singularity and unrepeatibility situation in history, society and personal circumstances. The meaning is based in the values derived from this uniqueness and their eternal storing in the past. I don’t understand how BK mentions Frankl if the individual is an illusion and the primordial task of MaL is to deceive itself. Then what can give foundation to the realization of values in the Franklian sense?

If reality is an hallucination, where is the place of the Franklian philosophy as a solution for the crisis of meaning? This particular set of ideas of BK begins to sound as nihilism to me.

Frankl believed a space of meaning and values exists. When I listen to Bernardo I hear Nietzsche. Frankl likes to quote Nietzsche's "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how", But that's exactly where the difference between the two lies. Nietzsche believes he creates values, whereas Frankl's faith is you discover them.

It could be as you say, Shaibei. Anyway, Bernardo likes to invoke Frankl. Here is a quote from The Idea of the World:

‘Psychotherapist Victor Frankl (1991), who practiced and led groups while detained in a concentration camp during World War II, asserted that the will-to-meaning is the most dominant human drive, in contrast to Nietzsche’s will-to-power and Freud’s will-to-pleasure. Meaning is so powerful that, as Jung remarked, it “makes a great many things endurable—perhaps everything”’

But outside of this kind of mentions, Bernardo never goes deep with Frankl’s ideas.

[Cleric K]

Ash, your reasoning doesn't take you far enough.

Evolutionary constraints and cultural consensus means that logic, based on bounded causality, reaches many bounded minds. This makes it temporarily useful. But logic is not eternal truth. Alan Watts' cat's tail viewed through slits in the fence is caused by the cat's head.

Logic that defeats itself points to what is unbounded! You must have come across Zen koans.

The bold part is entirely correct and this is the whole point. Alas, people are satisfied by simply asserting that there's something that goes beyond logic (logic in the limited sense as concrete constellation of thought relations) but without ever setting out to approach that something while still in a body.

In other words, no one is denying that our current intellect is only the cat's tail. What the talks are about is to bring attention to the fact that simply recognizing that there's something behind the tail is no longer enough. We need to actually move towards the cat's head, to gain consciousness of our spiritual activity which is closer to that head and which ordinarily precipitates only as tail movements (i.e. ordinary thoughts).

This is the crux of the matter. People generally don't mind to accept something deeper working behind their surface consciousness but this something is only dreamed about and expected after death. Instead we can recognize that our thoughts are the cat's tail and if we follow the source of thoughts we would get closer to the head, the Cosmic Word, not after death but here while still in a body.

[TriloByte]

Ashvin,

Two questions:

I'm genuinely curious if Ben, Eugene, TriloByte and Shalibei would agree with the characterization you have provided here?

Have you considered that BK means by "illusions" what you mean by "incompleteness", when you assert that even the most insightful among us are still offering "incomplete" visions due to the still evolving state of the human spiritual endeavor?

Lou

While I would need one thousand years to understand all that Ashvin says, yes, I agree with Ashvin on this issue.

If you think that you are a storyteller, well, no, it is mind that is deluding you. If you think, using reason, that there are real ducks, nop, that is mind deluding you.

Please, notice, I am not teelling you that you are wrong, I am saying rhat from Bernardo’s point of view you are deluded.

All opinions, reasons, value judgments, are delusions. So, yes, I agree with Ashvin that what Bernardo says is selfdefeating.

[Lou Gold]

Ash, your reasoning doesn't take you far enough.

Evolutionary constraints and cultural consensus means that logic, based on bounded causality, reaches many bounded minds. This makes it temporarily useful. But logic is not eternal truth. Alan Watts' cat's tail viewed through slits in the fence is caused by the cat's head.

Logic that defeats itself points to what is unbounded! You must have come across Zen koans.

The bold part is entirely correct and this is the whole point. Alas, people are satisfied by simply asserting that there's something that goes beyond logic (logic in the limited sense as concrete constellation of thought relations) but without ever setting out to approach that something while still in a body.

In other words, no one is denying that our current intellect is only the cat's tail. What the talks are about is to bring attention to the fact that simply recognizing that there's something behind the tail is no longer enough. We need to actually move towards the cat's head, to gain consciousness of our spiritual activity which is closer to that head and which ordinarily precipitates only as tail movements (i.e. ordinary thoughts).

This is the crux of the matter. People generally don't mind to accept something deeper working behind their surface consciousness but this something is only dreamed about and expected after death. Instead we can recognize that our thoughts are the cat's tail and if we follow the source of thoughts we would get closer to the head, the Cosmic Word, not after death but here while still in a body.

Cleric,

I agree with you and Ben on this one.

[Lou Gold]

Ashvin,

Two questions:

I'm genuinely curious if Ben, Eugene, TriloByte and Shalibei would agree with the characterization you have provided here?

Have you considered that BK means by "illusions" what you mean by "incompleteness", when you assert that even the most insightful among us are still offering "incomplete" visions due to the still evolving state of the human spiritual endeavor?

Lou

While I would need one thousand years to understand all that Ashvin says, yes, I agree with Ashvin on this issue.

If you think that you are a storyteller, well, no, it is mind that is deluding you. If you think, using reason, that there are real ducks, nop, that is mind deluding you.

Please, notice, I am not teelling you that you are wrong, I am saying rhat from Bernardo’s point of view you are deluded.

All opinions, reasons, value judgments, are delusions. So, yes, I agree with Ashvin that what Bernardo says is selfdefeating.

TriloByte,

I get it that you are not telling me that I'm wrong.

With regard to your bolded conclusion I would ask, "What if the purpose is to defeat the delusion of a separate self" and thus bring about a new way of seeing?

[AshvinP]

Understanding and accepting that I'll not convince you of my way of seeing, let me suggest that the phrase "true hallucinations" is quite meaningful. Referring back to my duck/rabbit example, the only way I can transform the whole image into a duck is by evoking the image of a duck as if it was real by naming it. And does this mean that real ducks do not exist beyond the image exercise? Of course, not!

Lou,

Everything is meaningful because Reality is meaning (see Flat MAL thread in general discussion). The question here is what meaning is conveyed in BK's article.

Hallucinations, like illusions and mirages, is the meaningful image of deception which leads to physical death. If I am in a desert, dying of thirst, and I go off towards an oasis that turns out to be a mirage, I have likely sealed my fate. Physical death, in turn, is the meaningful image of unconsciousness. It is no coincidence that BK feels "liberation" from illusion or hallucination is the merging back into primordial instinctive Consciousness, i.e. back to unconsciousness. He waffles around on that a bit, but he has made clear that his first preference would be unconsciousness rather than continued individuated existence if there was a choice. So the latest essay is just a natural and logical continuation of his view into its more extreme, i.e., polarized form and outcome.

re: duck and rabbit image - I will just quote Cosmin, because I agree with his broad assessment:

https://philpapers.org/archive/VISMAC-3.pdf

The first step is to establish that qualia are meaning, thus reducing the ontological category of “qualia” to the more natural ontological category of “meaning”. The most obvious one is the place where the concept of meaning is usually employed, and that is in language... The next easiest example is in cases such as the duck-rabbit image, as in Figure 8 (duck-rabbit image). This is a visual quale, but what is interesting here is that the particular quale that we get to experience depends on us attributing meaning to the image. The moment we attribute the meaning of “duck”, that same moment we experience the visual quale of “duck”. The moment we attribute the meaning of “rabbit”, that same moment we experience the visual quale of “rabbit”. Thus, visual experiences themselves are being modified according to what they mean. Actually, visual qualia themselves are a form of meaning.
...
We thus see that even more primitive qualia are also meanings. And this is true for qualia in general. The next step in the analysis is to explain how does meaning originates. One such reason is evolution, but “evolution” is again an ambiguous term, and given the fact that time itself is a quale in consciousness, evolution cannot be the one described today by Darwinism, but it must be an atemporal kind of phenomenon. Actually, evolution must be a side effect of the workings of meaning inside consciousness. Thus, “evolution” is not the primary selector of qualia/meaning. The primary selector, as we are about to see, must be an interplay between meaning and context.

We can go further to see what is always mediating that interplay between meaning and context in our experience, and that is our Thinking activity. Because it mostly runs quietly and sacrificially in the background, we often assume it isn't even there, but it is always there performing that mediating function. Your conscious intention to see the rabbit or duck form is a critical aspect of that context for the meaning. You cannot simply see any form you choose, but ideal evolution has run its course so that your Thinking can mediate smoothly between two different perceptual forms to express the meaning of the image, which we could liken to "small cute animal with beak or ears attached to the head". This meaning is not different for everyone - it is the same meaning. That is the only reason why the visual "illusion" works for everyone who participates in it. That is the reason why we can communicate, inform, empathize, adopt virtues, etc., bridging the gap between fragmented perceptions and shared meaning, and establish human culture which then provides us the moral and conceptual foundation for awakening to our own creative spiritual activity within the Cosmic organism.

[Lou Gold]

Understanding and accepting that I'll not convince you of my way of seeing, let me suggest that the phrase "true hallucinations" is quite meaningful. Referring back to my duck/rabbit example, the only way I can transform the whole image into a duck is by evoking the image of a duck as if it was real by naming it. And does this mean that real ducks do not exist beyond the image exercise? Of course, not!

Lou,

Everything is meaningful because Reality is meaning (see Flat MAL thread in general discussion). The question here is what meaning is conveyed in BK's article.

Hallucinations, like illusions and mirages, is the meaningful image of deception which leads to physical death. If I am in a desert, dying of thirst, and I go off towards an oasis that turns out to be a mirage, I have likely sealed my fate. Physical death, in turn, is the meaningful image of unconsciousness. It is no coincidence that BK feels "liberation" from illusion or hallucination is the merging back into primordial instinctive Consciousness, i.e. back to unconsciousness. He waffles around on that a bit, but he has made clear that his first preference would be unconsciousness rather than continued individuated existence if there was a choice. So the latest essay is just a natural and logical continuation of his view into its more extreme, i.e., polarized form and outcome.

re: duck and rabbit image - I will just quote Cosmin, because I agree with his broad assessment:

https://philpapers.org/archive/VISMAC-3.pdf

The first step is to establish that qualia are meaning, thus reducing the ontological category of “qualia” to the more natural ontological category of “meaning”. The most obvious one is the place where the concept of meaning is usually employed, and that is in language... The next easiest example is in cases such as the duck-rabbit image, as in Figure 8 (duck-rabbit image). This is a visual quale, but what is interesting here is that the particular quale that we get to experience depends on us attributing meaning to the image. The moment we attribute the meaning of “duck”, that same moment we experience the visual quale of “duck”. The moment we attribute the meaning of “rabbit”, that same moment we experience the visual quale of “rabbit”. Thus, visual experiences themselves are being modified according to what they mean. Actually, visual qualia themselves are a form of meaning.
...
We thus see that even more primitive qualia are also meanings. And this is true for qualia in general. The next step in the analysis is to explain how does meaning originates. One such reason is evolution, but “evolution” is again an ambiguous term, and given the fact that time itself is a quale in consciousness, evolution cannot be the one described today by Darwinism, but it must be an atemporal kind of phenomenon. Actually, evolution must be a side effect of the workings of meaning inside consciousness. Thus, “evolution” is not the primary selector of qualia/meaning. The primary selector, as we are about to see, must be an interplay between meaning and context.

We can go further to see what is always mediating that interplay between meaning and context in our experience, and that is our Thinking activity. Because it mostly runs quietly and sacrificially in the background, we often assume it isn't even there, but it is always there performing that mediating function. Your conscious intention to see the rabbit or duck form is a critical aspect of that context for the meaning. You cannot simply see any form you choose, but ideal evolution has run its course so that your Thinking can mediate smoothly between two different perceptual forms to express the meaning of the image, which we could liken to "small cute animal with beak or ears attached to the head". This meaning is not different for everyone - it is the same meaning. That is the only reason why the visual "illusion" works for everyone who participates in it. That is the reason why we can communicate, inform, empathize, adopt virtues, etc., bridging the gap between fragmented perceptions and shared meaning, and establish human culture which then provides us the moral and conceptual foundation for awakening to our own creative spiritual activity within the Cosmic organism.

which we could liken to "small cute animal with beak or ears attached to the head"

However, as you (and we) should be able to plainly see, the actual image is a "small cute animal with beak/ears attached to the head". Becoming aware of this now through reason or thinking or delusion is to become liberated from the false dichotomy that the image is either a duck or a rabbit.

[AshvinP]

However, as you (and we) should be able to plainly see, the actual image is a "small cute animal with beak/ears attached to the head". Becoming aware of this now through reason or thinking or delusion is to become liberated from the false dichotomy that the image is either a duck or a rabbit.

The question is whether we are liberated into higher, more integrated meaning or into a sense of, "the image is whatever I want it to be". The idea of "duck-rabbit" is more integrated than either duck or rabbit, but this idea is still structured, lawful, and nested within even higher ideas we discover through thinking. The image is a spiritual lesson that points us towards where we can find even higher archetypal meaning. It is not an end in itself, i.e. a final revelation of how we get to tell ourselves "stories" and all stories end up being of the same value as the other stories. That is simply an expression of our own desire to have control over the spiritual Cosmos - our desire to structure that Cosmos according to our own concepts rather than discerning how the spiritual Cosmos structures us. That discernment will only come if we continue to logically reason through our experiences rather than declaring logical reasoning itself to be "hallucination".

“The maxim is this: that the antidote to excessive indulgence is development, not restraint. When the young psychologist feels that he is getting altogether too abstract, too intellectualistic; that he is taking logic too seriously and forgetting ‘Life’, let him meet the situation by – taking logic a little more seriously still! Only this time let him do so of his own free will.”

-Owen Barfield, Psychology and Reason

[TriloByte]

Ashvin,

Two questions:

I'm genuinely curious if Ben, Eugene, TriloByte and Shalibei would agree with the characterization you have provided here?

Have you considered that BK means by "illusions" what you mean by "incompleteness", when you assert that even the most insightful among us are still offering "incomplete" visions due to the still evolving state of the human spiritual endeavor?

Lou

While I would need one thousand years to understand all that Ashvin says, yes, I agree with Ashvin on this issue.

If you think that you are a storyteller, well, no, it is mind that is deluding you. If you think, using reason, that there are real ducks, nop, that is mind deluding you.

Please, notice, I am not teelling you that you are wrong, I am saying rhat from Bernardo’s point of view you are deluded.

All opinions, reasons, value judgments, are delusions. So, yes, I agree with Ashvin that what Bernardo says is selfdefeating.

TriloByte,

I get it that you are not telling me that I'm wrong.

With regard to your bolded conclusion I would ask, "What if the purpose is to defeat the delusion of a separate self" and thus bring about a new way of seeing?

You can defeat the delusion of a separate self and at the same time don’t believe that mind’s prime directive is to deceive itself. Bernardo is not exactly a non-dual philosopher, let’s say, as Nagarjuna. He says that his post is about revelations, that

“I have a very ambiguous, dubious relationship with first-person revelations. I think they are very useful in a certain way, but should seldom be taken on face-value.”

But he takes on face value his own revelation about mind’s prime directive.